Richard Curtis returns to Four Weddings and a Funeral church for homeless project

The writer Richard Curtis returned to the scene of one of his most famous movie moments to back a project to help the homeless feel less excluded from normal life.

The film-maker, 57, joined dozens of rough sleepers invited to St Bartholomew the Great Church in West Smithfield for a screening of his Bafta-winning hit Four Weddings And A Funeral from 20 years ago.

It was the first of a series organised by Open Cinema, which brings film to deprived communities, with groups including the St Mungo’s Broadway charity which works with more than 2,500 homeless or at-risk men and women. It was prompted by the belief that they should have opportunities not just for housing but for culture too.

Curtis, who co-founded Comic Relief partly on the back of concerns over homelessness, said: “It’s very interesting issue that people who are excluded become more excluded and people who are deprived more and more deprived of the simplest things.

“What we’re trying to do is to put people back to where they can enjoy normal things.”

St Bartholomew the Great was the setting of the film’s fourth wedding between Hugh Grant’s Charles and Anna Chancellor’s Henrietta until his true love, Andie MacDowell’s Carrie, turns up.

Curtis said: “It’s a beautiful church and we had to be incredibly careful we didn’t smash things that were 800 years old with people carrying big metal poles around.”